Solar Solution to Lack of Electricity in Africa

 

Electricity is critical to improving human development and living standards. Yet, for many in the global South, electricity is either non-existent or its provision is patchy, erratic, unreliable or expensive.

Just as Africa has been able to jump a generation ahead when it comes to communications through the mass adoption of mobile phones – a much cheaper option than trying to provide telephone wires and cables across the continent – so it could also bypass the burdensome costs of providing electricity mains to everyone by turning to smaller electricity generation technologies such as solar power. This is called “off-grid” electricity.

The UN has set the goal of universal access to modern energy services by 2030. A report issued in April 2010 by United Nations Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon’s Advisory Group on Energy and Climate Change (AGECC) calls for expanding energy access to more than 2 billion people (http://www.unido.org/fileadmin/user_media/Publications/download/AGECCsummaryreport.pdf).

The report found that a lack of access to modern energy services represents a significant barrier to development. Some 1.6 billion people still lack access to electricity.

A reliable, affordable energy supply, the report says, is the key to economic growth and the achievement of the anti-poverty targets contained in the Millennium Development Goals.

When a person has electricity and the lighting it powers, it is possible to do business and study late into the night. Electric lighting also makes streets and living areas safer. Electricity can power a plethora of labour-saving and life-enhancing consumer goods: televisions, refrigerators, vacuum cleaners, air conditioners and fans, washing machines, clothes dryers, computers. And electricity recharges that most essential item, the mobile phone, on which millions rely to do their daily business.

After witnessing the struggle African health clinics have to access electricity, a Nairobi, Kenya-based company has developed a simple solution to ensure a steady supply of solar electricity. One Degree Solar’s (http://onedegreesolar.com/) founder, Gaurav Manchanda, developed and sells the BrightBox solar-charging system for lights, mobile phones, tablet computers and radios.

He first gained experience working in the West African nation of Liberia with the Clinton Health Access Initiative (http://www.clintonfoundation.org/main/our-work/by-initiative/clinton-health-access-initiative/about.html). Working at the country’s Ministry of Health, he found most health clinics operated without electricity.

He identified solar power as the only viable energy source. Trying to deliver fuel to power generators by the road network had two impediments: the diesel fuel was expensive and the road conditions were poor.

After seeing that large solar-power systems required significant maintenance and upkeep, he started to explore the possibility of low-cost, and simple-to-use solar electricity products that would be useful to community healthcare workers.

This became the beginning of One Degree Solar and its mission.

The company’s main product is the BrightBox, a cleverly designed solar charger. A bright orange box with a folding, aluminum handle at the top for easy carrying, it switches on and off simply with a bright red button. It has a waterproof solar panel. The BrightBox has USB (universal service bus) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Universal_Serial_Bus) ports so that mobile phones and radios can be plugged in. It is also possible to plug in four lights at once with the four outports on the side of the box.

It meets the standards set by the Lighting Africa initiative (http://lightingafrica.org/specs/one-degree-brightbox-2-.html) of the International Finance Corporation and the World Bank.

One Degree Solar claim it is possible to set up a BrightBox in 10 minutes. When the indicator light has turned green, the box is fully charged and capable of providing 40 hours of light.

A full charge can power two light bulbs for 20 hours. Manchanda told How We Made It In Africa (http://www.howwemadeitinafrica.com/) that he has sold 4,000 units of the BrightBox since its launch in October 2012.

According to The Nation, the BrightBox is currently retailing in Kenya for Kenyan shillings 7,000 (US $82).

One Degree Solar’s product range is sold to local resellers and distributors. The products are designed to be repaired using locally sourced parts and can be fixed by local electricians.

Most of the sales so far have been in Kenya but the firm has also sold units to other countries.

Testimonials on the BrightBox website tell of the transformation to people’s lives the clean energy source makes: “BrightBox has helped us in so many ways! We used to spend 800 Shillings (US $9.50) a month for two paraffin lanterns. The fumes smelled and always made us feel sick.”

Manchanda is a strong believer in Africa’s potential and its future and dismisses those who are negative about the continent.

“That was not a holistic assessment, but rather, an unnecessary and damaging generalization,” he told How We Made It In Africa. “Fortunately, most news outlets in Africa are now available online and offer a wider range of perspectives. The middle class is booming in certain countries. We have seen the success of mobile phones in enabling people to access other services. I think hope and progress come with innovation. Technology access has helped create entirely new markets and reach populations that otherwise could have taken decades to service with traditional approaches.

“India was in a similar space 15 years ago before the Internet boom, and today parts of Nairobi (Kenya) are just like Delhi (India): people have a cell phone or two, there are large shopping malls, a booming middle class, and new construction everywhere.”

By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions

Published: June 2013

Development Challenges, South-South Solutions was launched as an e-newsletter in 2006 by UNDP's South-South Cooperation Unit (now the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation) based in New York, USA. It led on profiling the rise of the global South as an economic powerhouse and was one of the first regular publications to champion the global South's innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneers. It tracked the key trends that are now so profoundly reshaping how development is seen and done. This includes the rapid take-up of mobile phones and information technology in the global South (as profiled in the first issue of magazine Southern Innovator), the move to becoming a majority urban world, a growing global innovator culture, and the plethora of solutions being developed in the global South to tackle its problems and improve living conditions and boost human development. The success of the e-newsletter led to the launch of the magazine Southern Innovator.  

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Ambitious Schemes Hope to Advance Economic Development

Sometimes it takes a bold, fresh start to speed up economic and human development goals. Taking a large-scale approach has been used around the world, either establishing new trade zones or even a new city.

Two recent examples in Nigeria and Afghanistan are attempting to speed economic development in their respective countries, with both receiving help from experienced Asian practitioners of rapid economic development.

The role models for this approach are the so-called “Asian Tigers”: they include Taiwan, Hong Kong, Singapore and South Korea. They are admired because each country rose from extreme poverty to become some of the Earth’s richest nations. Importantly, what they did stands as proof that extreme poverty can be escaped from; people can become much wealthier in just a decade or two.

The pioneer of using trade zones to speed development is the Asian city state of Singapore (http://www.gov.sg/government/web/content/govsg/classic/home)..Fifty years ago it was one of Asia’s poorest countries. With its port (http://www.mpa.gov.sg/) it had a way to turn things around but it also realized in the early 1960s it could not just compete by having cheap labour, something that was plentiful across the developing world (http://www.mti.gov.sg/MTIInsights/Pages/Economic-History-and-Milestones.aspx). It needed unique technical skills that could not be found elsewhere.

The country was unable to create products and services that it could export and compete in global markets because of a lack of skills, the Government determined. Authorities employed a mix of measures to make the country attractive to foreign companies to boost skills. These included fair enforcement of local laws, tax incentives and upgraded infrastructure, much of it paid for with an infrastructure tax, rather than borrowing. With the influx of new thinking and high-quality skills, new technologies and new ways of doing things, in time, a culture of innovation became hardwired into the way things were done in Singapore.

Beginning in 1961 with the Jurong Industrial Estate (http://infopedia.nl.sg/articles/SIP_246_2004-12-16.html), the Singapore government set aside land to develop the economy by attracting international businesses and boosting its existing port facilities. It also established the Economic Development Board (EDB) in 1961 and the Singapore Tourism Promotion Board (STPB) in 1964.

By creating favorable conditions for international businesses to come in and operate, Singapore quickly developed to become one of Asia’s wealthiest trading and manufacturing centres.

This is a strategy China successfully implemented in the 1980s and 1990s and in turn generated the largest and quickest population shift out of poverty in human history, turning the country into an economic powerhouse.

The secrets to making this strategy work include understanding what modern infrastructure requirements are necessary for international businesses. These days, this means speedy and generous bandwidth for the Internet, modern airports, roads, security, and quality housing and food.

One of the biggest contemporary challenges is competition. Whereas Singapore was a pioneer in its day, now, many countries across the global South are pursuing this strategy to spur growth. An international company has many options to consider, and will more than likely gravitate towards the country that makes the best offer with the least risk.

Trade zones are places ripe with opportunity for innovators. New places tend to be seeking the latest in information and communication technologies, the latest in transportation options, modern housing and office facilities. All of these changes require innovators with fresh thinking to make them work. It is also often easier to introduce new ways of doing things to places that are not coping with legacy infrastructure and old habits and ways.

Billing itself as a “new model city,” the Lekki Free Zone Lagos, Nigeria (lekkizone.com) in West Africa is trying to bring a fresh start to the city and the region. It is a joint partnership between investors from China and Nigeria.

Its goal is to better connect regional markets to the global economy. The free trade zone hopes to remove barriers to growth and to attract international investment, becoming the top destination for inward investment in Africa. The project is being run by the Lagos State Government but funded with private capital investment.

Nigeria has been looking into Free Zones since 1982, as it sought additional ways to earn income apart from oil exports. The Export Processing Zone Act 63 was passed in 1992 and the Calabar Export Processing Zone was eventually set up in 1999 (http://www.nepza.gov.ng/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=18&Itemid=34). Since then, a slew of Free Zones have been set up, or are in the works.

The Lekki Free Zone is envisioned as a high-tech zone that will eventually lead to the creation of 2 million jobs. The Zone’s investors are targeting businesses working in oil and gas, petrochemicals, electronics, light and heavy equipment, machinery and automobiles, pharmaceuticals, textiles, shopping and banking and financial services.

Lagos State is home to 21 million people, and the current city of Lagos is on course to become the third-largest megacity in the world. Officials claim the area has an economic growth rate of 16.8 per cent per year.

The 16,500 hectare Lekki Free Zone, to the southeast of the city, is divided into two parts: an industrial zone and a residential zone. The residential zone will include apartments and villas, shopping malls and plazas, hospitals and clinics, schools and research and development centres and a hotel, tour and recreational centres, golf courses, gyms and water sports facilities.

Located on the southern coast of Nigeria with connections to the Atlantic Ocean and the Gulf of Guinea, the Lekki Free Zone says it will give companies access to the largest consumer market in Africa, with a potential reach of 500 million people.

The companies will also be able to draw on Nigeria’s natural resources, including oil, natural gas, timber, rubber, cocoa, Arabic gum and sesame seeds as examples.

Another new beginning is being sought in war-torn Afghanistan, which is working on building a new city close to the capital, Kabul.

Kabul New City started construction in 2013 and is planned to be a city of canals, parks and villas. It will be home to 1.5 million people, cost US $33 billion and take 15 years to complete. It is being partly funded by Japan.

It is a very ambitious scheme for a country that has been mired in conflict for decades. It is hoped the initial seed capital invested by Japan will attract other investors to fully fund the project. Japan got the project going with a commitment to contribute US $106 million between 2009 and 2015.

The site of Kabul New City is 19 kilometres from the existing Kabul, near the Bagram airbase used by NATO forces in the country.

Foreign military forces are looking to leave Afghanistan in 2014 and the new city offers a fresh start for the country after years of conflict.

Located in an area surrounded by the Marko mountains, it is in “one of the safest areas of Afghanistan,” Abdul Habib Zadran, Chief Financial Officer of the Dehsabz-Barikab City Development Authority (http://www.dcda.gov.af/), the agency in charge of the project, told The Sunday Times.

The project could be a significant leap ahead in modernization from the current conditions in Kabul, where the streets are in poor condition and buildings in disrepair. Kabul was originally built for 800,000 people, according to The Sunday Times, but now has over 4 million residents. Projections forecast the city growing to 6.5 million people by 2025. Kabul will experience extreme pressure to handle this growing population and find the resources to serve it.

The homes would receive electricity from solar panels and renewable energy sources. Kabul New City will need to tackle the problem of access to enough water to service the growing new city’s population. Plans are afoot to provide water from rivers north of the city.

The master plan for the new city has been designed by Zahra Breshna (breshna-consulting.com), an Afghan-German company which has also built the new Kabul Bank headquarters. The company calls the project “a new beginning for Kabul.”

By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions

Published: May 2013

Development Challenges, South-South Solutions was launched as an e-newsletter in 2006 by UNDP's South-South Cooperation Unit (now the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation) based in New York, USA. It led on profiling the rise of the global South as an economic powerhouse and was one of the first regular publications to champion the global South's innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneers. It tracked the key trends that are now so profoundly reshaping how development is seen and done. This includes the rapid take-up of mobile phones and information technology in the global South (as profiled in the first issue of magazine Southern Innovator), the move to becoming a majority urban world, a growing global innovator culture, and the plethora of solutions being developed in the global South to tackle its problems and improve living conditions and boost human development. The success of the e-newsletter led to the launch of the magazine Southern Innovator.  

Follow @SouthSouth1

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Indian Initiatives to Make Travel Safer for Women

Shocking assaults on women traveling in India have galvanized innovators to find solutions. One solution that is proving successful is to establish specialist taxi services for women. As a happy additional benefit, these taxi innovators are transforming the taxi experience, introducing more ethical practices such as honest fares, professional and safe driving habits and clean, hygienic and comfortable taxis.

With sexual harassment levels high and several shocking assaults and rapes of women in Indian cities grabbing global media attention, Indian women are now being offered a variety of women-driver-only taxi services to ensure they get to work and home again safely.

As well as offering their passengers security, these companies are also redefining the taxi experience with innovation. As travelers know, the taxi experience in many cities can be frustrating, fraught with scams, rip-offs, disputes over fares, unhygienic taxi interiors and poor driving skills. These pioneering women-only taxi companies are trying to show there is another way: that taxis can be clean, meters honest and driving safe and sound.

Security for women has come into the media spotlight in India after a series of high-profile attacks and sexual assaults. The country is undergoing major economic and social change as it modernizes and urbanizes. Women are seeing their incomes and their role in the economy increase.

This brings both opportunities and risks. Women who would have only lived and worked in a small geographical area, and generally associated only with their family or a small village, are now mobile and in contact with the busy urban environments of megacities awash with strangers.

One woman is raped every 20 minutes in India, according to the National Crime Records Bureau. But police estimate only four out of 10 rapes are reported, largely due to victims’ fear of being shamed by their families and communities. At the beginning of March 2013, a campaign to raise awareness on women’s safety was launched in Delhi to chime with International Women’s Day. The UN also confirmed in March 2013 a global strategy to combat violence against women (http://www.un.org/womenwatch/daw/csw/57sess.htm).

One champion of safer transport for women in India is Revathi Roy, a rally car driver and entrepreneur. She started a women-only taxi company in Mumbai called Forsche in 2007 out of raw economic need, and to solve a problem.

“I am a very fussy passenger and I would get upset that the seat was not comfortable, or the driver was driving too rashly for my liking,” Roy told BBC News.

“I would also find it irritating that some drivers would stare at me from their rear-view mirror and one day, I just decided I had had enough.”

Forsche – pronounced “for she” – a play on the German car maker Porsche’s name – was one of the pioneers in bringing all-women taxi services to India. Their drivers’ uniform came in pink and purple with a purple scarf worn around the neck.

However, Roy parted ways with her previous business partner and set up Viira Cabs (viiracabs.com/) in 2011. Viira means ‘courageous woman’ according to Roy.

Roy hopes passengers from young girls to senior citizens will feel safer and more confident knowing a woman is the driver.

“The attitude of Indian mothers is changing,” she said. “Now they know their daughters go out and drink. They realize they may as well keep them safe by putting them in the hands of a woman who at all times is playing the role of a mother or a sister.  A man can’t be a woman. And just because a woman is sitting at the wheel she doesn’t become a man.”

The company has 20 taxis and 25 drivers. It uses a fleet of Maruti Eecos (http://marutisuzukieeco.in/), a mini van made by Suzuki capable of carrying four adult passengers and their luggage. Viira also seeks to improve driving standards on Mumbai’s roads by setting a good example with safe, defensive driving techniques.

A pioneer of female taxi drivers in India, Roy is now the Mentor and Chief Driving Officer for Viira Cabs. According to the company’s website, she is looking to train thousands of women to be able to make their livelihood as a taxi driver.

“Driving is still very male dominated and in Mumbai where most people travel by public transport, there are very few women with driving licenses,” she explained.

“Viira is a very powerful platform for poor, urban women who are now able to earn up to Rs 12,000 a month (US $222),” Roy told CNN.

Viira’s drivers wear a professional uniform of a peaked cap, white short sleeved shirt with blue trim, and a plastic identification badge on a blue lanyard. This makes it clear from the start to passengers who is driving them.

The service runs 24 hours a day, seven day a week, and journeys are dispatched from the company’s call centre. To keep the service safe as can be, all vehicles are monitored by GPS (global positioning system) and a panic alert system. The drivers receive self-defence and defensive-driving training so they can elude any dangers while on the road. They also know how to handle roadside emergencies and are backed up by 24/7 support from the call centre.

The taxis follow the standard charges set down by the Mumbai region. By using mini-vans, passengers are able to enjoy a comfortable and roomy ride in air conditioned comfort – a big plus in a hot country. The vans run on CNG (compressed natural gas) (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Compressed_natural_gas), reducing pollution.

To add even more value to the journey experience, the taxis feature live television and Internet web surfing using something called Tabbie TM (Tablet in a Cab), a 10-inch-wide computer tablet.

In addition to the taxi service, the Viira Motor Training School offers driver training to women with low incomes. Its 12-week program covers all the main areas of taxi-driving skills – driving theory, mechanics, customer service, health and safety and self-defence – but also goes to the next level and gives the students training on a vehicle-driving simulator donated by the Suzuki company.

Roy said she hopes to expand the business from Mumbai to smaller urban areas “where Indian women are most starved of opportunities.”

Long-term, she wants to become “India’s premier chauffeur and fleet service.”

Roy’s success with these companies led to the founding of the social enterprise Sakh Consulting Wings (http://sakhaconsultingwings.com/about-us.php) to support establishing similar services in other Indian cities.

Sakha Consulting Wings is partnered with the Azad Foundation to promote taxi driving as a viable career for women from poor backgrounds.

Super Cabz in Delhi (http://www.supercabz.com/women-friendly-cab-service-delhi-ncr.php) is another service aimed at women. It has innovations such as panic buttons in the back seats of the cabs and mobilizers to allow the central call centre to shut the cab’s engine down in an emergency. There is also a GPS monitoring and tracking system to keep tabs on the cabs as they go about the city.

By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions

Published: May 2013

Development Challenges, South-South Solutions was launched as an e-newsletter in 2006 by UNDP's South-South Cooperation Unit (now the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation) based in New York, USA. It led on profiling the rise of the global South as an economic powerhouse and was one of the first regular publications to champion the global South's innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneers. It tracked the key trends that are now so profoundly reshaping how development is seen and done. This includes the rapid take-up of mobile phones and information technology in the global South (as profiled in the first issue of magazine Southern Innovator), the move to becoming a majority urban world, a growing global innovator culture, and the plethora of solutions being developed in the global South to tackle its problems and improve living conditions and boost human development. The success of the e-newsletter led to the launch of the magazine Southern Innovator.  

Follow @SouthSouth1

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Bangladesh Coffin-Maker Offers an Ethical Ending

Few people want to think about death, and many are ill-prepared when it happens to a loved one or friend. But it will happen to us all – and growing ethical and environmental concerns are reshaping the way many deal with the inevitable event. More and more people are seeking a lower-cost option for being disposed of that also does not harm the environment.

There are many ideas out there, but one that is getting attention is using sustainably sourced and fairly traded coffins as a way of reducing carbon emissions resulting from a person’s death.

Bangladeshi pioneers Oasis Coffins (oasiscoffins.com) are crafting ecologically sound, Fair Trade coffins and generating jobs and income for an impoverished region of the country. The coffins are made from locally grown bamboo, seagrass and willow and are a clever piece of design.

Bamboo is as strong as steel and yet flexible, and the coffins made from it look like typical burial boxes – but can be folded back into their footprint to be stored flat. This is a great space-saving innovation and makes it easier to store the coffins and also to ship them to overseas markets. This clever design is reducing the amount of energy used.

Oasis has a manufacturing workshop employing 70 people in the Nilphamari district of Bangladesh (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nilphamari_District), about 400 kilometres north from the capital, Dhaka. The region is poor, but large quantities of bamboo grow in the area.

It is a region where employment is seasonal and erratic, making family life chaotic as parents constantly search for stable work. Oasis Coffins is located in the Uttara Export Processing Zone (http://www.epzbangladesh.org.bd/bepza.php?id=EPZ-U), run under the authority of the Bangladesh Export Processing Zones Authority (BEPZA), a government agency that aims to “promote, attract and facilitate foreign investment in the Export Processing Zones.”  Its sales office is based in Birmingham in the United Kingdom.

The company began in 2006 with the idea of creating high-quality products using local materials while creating good quality jobs to achieve a double impact: changed lives and a protected environment. The hope is to create a business model that can be replicated elsewhere.

The company is structured to include both its product development and manufacturing in rural Bangladesh. It took its time conducting market research and product development to make sure it had a product people were willing to buy.

“We make beautiful, high quality products in an environment that gives people reliable employment and good working conditions,” said managing director David How on the company’s website. “Our products are in demand from people who are becoming increasingly conscious of their impact on the environment and others.

“It is encouraging to know that in bereavement, we can give life into people and a community in Bangladesh. We want people to know where their products are coming from, and to know that what they buy can benefit people elsewhere.”

According to its website, Oasis Coffins abides by the standards prescribed by the World Fair Trade Organization (wfto.com) and the European Fair Trade Association (http://www.european-fair-trade-association.org/) and is also a member of ECOTA (ecotaftf.org). The ECOTA Fair Trade Forum started in 1990 and is a networking and coordinating body for small and medium sized Fair Trade Enterprises of Bangladesh.

Employees are divided equally between women and men, and many have never been to school. They are paid 30 per cent more than the recommended rate for garment workers in Bangladesh.

Oasis Coffins know by name the farmers who provide the bamboo and all of it is harvested within 20 kilometres of the manufacturing workshop. Oasis Coffins also takes pride in the construction of the workshop, which features plenty of natural light, good ventilation and easy access in and out. A comfortable workshop is important for the health and happiness of manufacturing workers.

Employees receive a pension scheme, paid holidays, sick leave and a lump-sum payment if they leave. There is also a doctor available during working hours for free medical advice.

To help upgrade the skills of the workers, there are lunchtime literacy classes, and employees are also taught how to manufacture products to a high global standard.

The Oasis coffins are benefiting from the growing marketplace for green funerals in Europe and North America.

In Britain, ecological funerals are on the rise as people seek an affordable and environmentally sound way to be dispatched. The UK’s Co-operative Funeral Care, part of the Co-operative Group, is selling the Bangladeshi coffins at more than 900 of its funeral homes in the United Kingdom as part of its ethical strategy.

Providing funeral services can be an effective income generator. In Ghana, craftsmen have developed a global reputation for their quirky coffin designs celebrating the lives of the deceased. Ghana is also pioneering the selling of funeral insurance through mobile phones. Bereavement services are among the many basic needs of all communities, no matter where they are located. Just as people will always be born and get sick, they will also eventually die. Providing services that offer dignity to the families and the deceased can be a boost to local economies.

By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions

Published: March 2013

Development Challenges, South-South Solutions was launched as an e-newsletter in 2006 by UNDP's South-South Cooperation Unit (now the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation) based in New York, USA. It led on profiling the rise of the global South as an economic powerhouse and was one of the first regular publications to champion the global South's innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneers. It tracked the key trends that are now so profoundly reshaping how development is seen and done. This includes the rapid take-up of mobile phones and information technology in the global South (as profiled in the first issue of magazine Southern Innovator), the move to becoming a majority urban world, a growing global innovator culture, and the plethora of solutions being developed in the global South to tackle its problems and improve living conditions and boost human development. The success of the e-newsletter led to the launch of the magazine Southern Innovator.  

Follow @SouthSouth1

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Thai Organic Supermarkets Seek to Improve Health

A Thai business is working hard to expand access to organic food in the country. It sees this as part of a wider campaign to improve health in the country – and its success has caught the attention of the government, which wants to turn Thailand into a global health destination.

The Lemon Farm chain run by Suwanna Langnamsank (http://www.lemonfarm.com/lmf/) was started 13 years ago and has grown to nine organic supermarkets in the capital, Bangkok. Lemon Farm works with 200 organic farms in Thailand and employs 160 people.

Organic food (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Organic_food) – grown without chemicals and artificial fertilizers and not irradiated or subjected to other tampering – is believed by many to be healthier because it avoids the harmful effects of accumulating chemicals. It is also thought to be richer in vitamins and minerals because of the use of non-chemical fertilizers on the soil.

Lemon Farm sells made-in-Thailand organic vegetables and fruit, natural gift sets, soap and tea. There are also macrobiotic cafes in the supermarkets called Be Organic.  A macrobiotic diet avoids foods containing toxins (http://www.cancerresearchuk.org/cancer-help/about-cancer/treatment/complementary-alternative/therapies/macrobiotic-diet).

The supermarkets use eye-pleasing modern design to set themselves apart from more conventional supermarkets.

According to Lemon Farm’s website, it is a social enterprise and practices fair trade. It is using market-driven solutions to increase the availability of healthy food in the country. It seeks to support small-scale farmers and champion change in farming methods, encouraging a move away from dependence on harmful chemicals that damage human health and the environment and promoting “agricultural and economic self-sufficiency”.

The macrobiotic restaurant operates to six values, among them using fresh vegetables and only using produce from associated farms. The restaurants do not use added sugar, they cook using a pressure cooker, and use natural ingredients such as sea salt, ginger, fermented soy sauce and natural miso. They do not use any artificial preservatives or flavour enhancers such as monosodium glutamate (MSG), a common practice in Asian cooking.

Lemon Farm’s success as an organic food pioneer has caught the attention of the Thai government. The Ministry of Commerce (http://www2.moc.go.th/main.php?filename=index_design4_en) has contracted Lemon Farm to join its campaign to offer organic food in schools and hospitals.

By promoting organic food, the government is hoping to boost farmers’ incomes while improving health in the country and bolstering the country’s thriving medical services industry serving foreign patients.

“We need to promote healthy food and a healthy environment,” Piramol Charoenpao, deputy permanent secretary at the Ministry of Commerce, told Monocle magazine. “Thailand is a medical hub. The idea is to have retreat-style hospitals serving organic food. We’re increasing organic food production and educating people about it.”

Thailand has already built a good reputation with its medical and health services. More than 1.6 million non-Thais are treated in Thai hospitals annually, with an estimated 500,000 travelling specifically for medical treatment (The Guardian).

Former Thai Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra mooted the idea of making the country an international leader in medical tourism in 2003. It is expected providing medical services to overseas patients will make the country US $3.3 billion by 2015 (The Guardian).
 
It is hoped that offering organic food in hospitals and health facilities will boost the attractiveness and effectiveness of using health services in Thailand.

Medical tourism is considered one of the fastest-growing sectors in the world. Estimates place it as a market worth US $100 billion. Three countries that compete in this market by offering medical services in the English language include India, Singapore and Thailand. They compete by offering services comparable to wealthier countries but at considerably less cost.

Lemon Farm says it is on a mission to develop the marketplace for organic food in Thailand by educating consumers and producing “innovative natural food”.  It looks like it has already made a big impact.

By David South, Development Challenges, South-South Solutions

Published: February 2013

Development Challenges, South-South Solutions was launched as an e-newsletter in 2006 by UNDP's South-South Cooperation Unit (now the United Nations Office for South-South Cooperation) based in New York, USA. It led on profiling the rise of the global South as an economic powerhouse and was one of the first regular publications to champion the global South's innovators, entrepreneurs, and pioneers. It tracked the key trends that are now so profoundly reshaping how development is seen and done. This includes the rapid take-up of mobile phones and information technology in the global South (as profiled in the first issue of magazine Southern Innovator), the move to becoming a majority urban world, a growing global innovator culture, and the plethora of solutions being developed in the global South to tackle its problems and improve living conditions and boost human development. The success of the e-newsletter led to the launch of the magazine Southern Innovator.  

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